Related Products @ Leeners

Procedure

Use a two gallon food grade bucket during primary fermentation. Sterilize your fermenter with EZ Clean along with any other equipment that will come into contact with the must.

Dissolve the sugar and additives in a quart of warm water. Add sugar gradually both initially and for sweetening. Add ½ of the initial sugar and take a gravity reading or taste if you are sweetening a finished wine before adding the rest. This will insure that your wine doesn’t come out too strong. Fermentation will stop automatically, but wine must be stabilized with potassium sorbate if sugar is added after fermentation for sweetening. This will prevent renewed fermentation.

Add the fruit puree and enough water to equal one gallon total volume. Add the other ingredients except the yeast. Stir well.

Take the specific gravity reading using a hydrometer. The must should be between 1.090 and 1.100. If it is lower, add enough sugar to bring the gravity up to the target starting gravity. Approximately 4 ounces of sugar will raise the gravity by .010 points.

Add the wine yeast to the must by sprinkling it on top. If your bucket does not include a lid, cover the fermenter with cheese cloth or a fine nylon mesh straining bag. This allows the must to breathe. Stir must every day for 5 to 7 days (until the gravity is about 1.030.

Now, siphon the wine into a sterilized one gallon jug Attach an airlock and continue to ferment for another 2 to 4 weeks. The final gravity reading should be 1.000 or lower.

When the wine is ready, prepare a wine fining agent according to the package instructions, crush one campden tablet and sorbate in ¼ cups of cold water and place it into a sterilized one gallon jug then siphon the wine off the sediment into it. Let the wine rest for 4 weeks.

The wine can be bottled at this time. For a sweeter wine, dissolve 2 to 4 teaspoons of sugar in 1/4 cup warm water. Add ½ teaspoon potassium sorbate to the wine and then add the sugar mixture to the wine to taste.